With new series, Mary McCormack deserves a big hand!

The USA Network has found a woman to go along with its quirky male crime solvers in Monk and Psych– and it’s big, man-handed Mary McCormack.

In a move that echoes Tony Danza’s practice of playing only characters named “Tony,” Mary will star as Mary Shannon in Mary Sunshine, a quirky “light drama” about a US Marshal with a demanding job in the witness protection program– and a wacky personal life in which she’s not allowed to talk about her job.

McCormack’s own personal life comes into play, because as USA picks up the pilot and orders 11 more episodes–

She’s pregnant.Producers at NBC Universal TV say they’ll work around the blessed event by beginning production in the summer, hoping to squeeze in the show in the fourth quarter or early 2008.

The project was originally announced as In Plain Sight (is the “Sunshine” title meant to evoke the wacky family in the Little Miss Sunshine movie? Does it reflect the “light” part of the drama? Or is simply more Monkian?). And the pilot was shot before McCormack found herself fertilized with her second child. Co-stars include Lesley Ann Warren, Frederick Weller, Todd Williams and Nichole Hiltz.

Jersey girl Mary McCormack first hit the radar screen in the ABC series Murder One. She went on to star as Howard Stern’s suffering wife in the movie Private Parts, was part of The West Wing and co-starred in our favorite confusing HBO series, K Street.

(Fun fact: Mary McCormack’s hands are supposedly so large– she can palm a basketball!)

–Tabloid Baby